The Ruin

THE RUIN

(A Modern Alliterative Translation & Completion)

Note: The original Anglo-Saxon poem is fragmentary due to manuscript damage. The following version blends translation and creative reconstruction. The Ruin is a description of a deserted Roman city, probably at Bath. The poet musing on the ruins describes what he encountered and saw in poetic style. The poem is a part of what is called the Exeter folio which contains scripts of Anglo-Saxon poetry and riddles. It was most likely transcribed by a monk or cleric at Exeter England.

Robert N. Taylor, 2025.

Wondrous is this wall-stone, wasted by Wyrd,

Broken by battle, battered by time.

Mighty the makers, memories gone,

Shattered the strongholds, sunlit yet silent.

Rime-scoured ramparts, roofless halls,

Frost has gripped them, fire has gnawed.

Time and its talons took what was proud,

Gnawed the bright walls—great was the ruin!

Stones once stood, storm-fast, wide-spanning halls,

High-gabled homes, now hollow with age.

The halls are fallen, the hearths are cold,

The revel is ended, the rulers are dust.

Gone are the guards, the golden light,

The banquets, the bliss, the boast of men.

Once gold gleamed on graven gates,

Bright were the bath-halls, beams on the roof,

Lofty the towers that touched the sky—

Pride of a people, princes long dead.

Hot flowed the springs, hollowed in stone,

Wondrously walled, welling with heat,

Steam curling skyward, scented with herbs,

A gift to the guests of the great-hearted givers.

(— Beginning of Fragmented Section —)

There warriors washed their war-weary limbs,

After the fray, fresh from the fight.

Blissful in bathing, bold men laughed,

Lords of the land, long since gone.

Crafted with cunning, these courts and halls,

Risen by hands hewn to skill,

Mortared with marvels, matched with gems,

Built to endure—but doomed to fade.

Wyrd is relentless; ruins bear witness.

Stone does not sing, but stands in sorrow.

Time conquers towers, tears down thrones,

Severs the strong, sunders all bonds.

Lo! This learning lies in the dust—

Wisdom of ancients, wasted by years.

Yet Whispers of wonder, warning the proud.

(— End of Reconstruction —)

Let him who walks here wonder in thought,

Marking these walls, the might that was.

Gone is the glory, the gleaming past,

Dust upon dust, and dreams turned to past

still it speaks to spirit and soul.